What's different is Bowman's paycheck. He is not a NASA employee. He may work for Boeing, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin startup, or another aerospace company. His firm describes the U.S. government as a "customer."

New Course for NASA

If the Obama administration has its way, something like this may happen as NASA changes course under its proposed new budget. The Constellation project -- ordered by President Bush in 2004 to return astronauts to the moon and eventually send them to Mars -- would be canceled. The Obama administration says it was too expensive -- $9.1 billion so far -- and relied on old technology.

Sept. 29, 1988: Discovery Shuttle Launch

In its place, NASA would concentrate on developing new technologies for future exploration, leaving some of its existing functions -- such as launching astronauts to the space station -- to private industry.

"Imagine enabling hundreds, even thousands of people to visit or live in low earth orbit, while NASA firmly focuses its gaze on the cosmic horizon beyond earth," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a telephone news conference today.

James Kohlenberger of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy joined in: "While we are canceling Constellation, we are not canceling our ambitions for exploration."

Some space entrepreneurs said they were thrilled. Others -- especially if they worried about existing aerospace jobs in Florida, Texas and Alabama -- promised a fight to the finish in Congress.

Highlights of Obama Plan

Some highlights in the proposed NASA budget:

Extend the life of the space station at least five years, to 2020 or beyond.

Spend $7.8 billion over five years on new technologies "that reduce the cost and expand the capabilities of future exploration technologies," including ways to refuel spacecraft in orbit and keep astronauts going on long missions without supplies from earth. There would be robotic missions to the moon and nearby asteroids, as precursors to eventual flights by astronauts.

Build new heavy-lift rockets with improved materials -- but not the Ares I and Ares V boosters from the Constellation project. To save money and development time, they relied heavily on components from the space shuttles, which will be retired in a year after five more flights.

Obama NASA Budget: Don't Shoot For the Moon Quite Yet

Spend $6 billion over five years to jump-start private companies to take over the job of launching astronauts and cargo.

These are major changes for the space effort -- and there will be clear winners and losers if the White House gets its proposal through Congress.